Surrounded by Friends for the Holidays

From the post that follows, don’t imagine that I’m lonely for human companionship. Far from it. Lana is here. I’ve spoken with my son and should see him and his wife, Heidi, and new son (my beautiful grandson Silas) soon. I’ve been on the phone and visited with friends and family. I stay in touch with many on facebook. But today, I’m posting about a different kind of friend. Some might call them the imaginary kind, but if you’re a reader you’ll know it’s more than that.

Joe Lansdale is just off to my right as I type this. T. Chris Martindale, Robert McCammon, David Morrell are close by. Well, their books are; their characters are. I’ve never met these writers, but their books and characters like Hap and Leonard and John Rambo are long-term friends and companions. Shirley Jackson and Charlee Jacob are there. These two writers themselves are sadly gone, but the books remain my friends—although Charlee’s works are not exactly the kind one brings home to mother. Even H. P. Lovecraft is there, a curmudgeonly uncle if there ever was one.

To my left sits Robert E. Howard and the single largest collection of lit-friends. As I look at them now, I reach for a book or two to share a nod with Kull and Bran and Dark Agnes. But Edgar Rice Burroughs and his creations are calling from behind. John Carter, Tarzan, Jane, David Innes, Dejah Thoris, Carson Napier loom larger than life at my shoulders. And right next to them are Dray Prescot, Delia of Delphond, Elric, Druss the Legend, Raven, Croaker, Eric John Stark, and a hundred others—Brak, Kothar, Kyrik, Thongor, Aldair—you know I could go on.

I can go around the room and name them: Poul Anderson’s Flandry of Terra, the Witch World characters of Andre Norton, Hammer’s Slammers and the Dorsai, the Lost Regiment of William Forstchen, Paul Atreides and Captain Blood, Repairman Jack and all the magnificent characters of Thieves’ World. The Traveler and the Destroyer and the Survivalist. The Shadow and Spider. Dumarest of Terra, Doc Savage, and Blade (more than one by that name). Harry Potter and Hermione. The Sacketts and all their kin. Some aren’t even human—The Black Stallion, Flame, Desert Dog, Big Red, White Fang, Buck, Old Yeller, Kalak.

There are plenty works by writers I have met and can call friends: James Reasoner, Sidney Williams, O’Neil De Noux, James Sallis, David Lanoue, Candice Proctor, Rexanne Becnel, Shauna Roberts, and others I know well enough that it feels like we’ve met even if we haven’t—Paul Bishop, Richard Prosch, Bruce Boston, Danette Haworth, Charles Nuetzel, Seth Lindberg, David West, Chris LaTray.

And these days, there’s even some of my own literary children in the mix: Ruenn MacLang, Trenton Banning, Thal and Krieg and Bryle, and three little foxes named Emris, Lyder and Flis. It’s a pretty full house for the Holidays. I’m happy.

Year's End: 2017

2017! An unusual year for me. It started off pretty good, got better, got bad for a while, then picked up again. At the moment I’m feeling pretty good. I sure hope that rolls over into 2018. I don’t live a terribly exciting life. One big surprise was being named as an influence by the new mayor of New Orleans. That was nice. I was also featured a couple of times in the local paper and nice things were said about my writing. Overall, though, it wasn’t a big year for sales of my books, although I didn’t do much to push it this year. I also did not submit as much as I usually do.

On the writing front itself, I did finish The Scarred One, a western novella/novel that I started working on a couple of years ago. I also self published a print version of my western collection, Killing Trail, under the pseudonym Tyler Boone. In October, Cold in the Light, my first published novel, went out of print. I went through it and did a fairly minor rewrite, and will be submitting it and The Scarred One for potential publication in 2018. I’ve also got a novella called “The Razored Land” that I want to submit next year. Finally, I wrote a lot of poetry this year, far more than has been typical of me in the past.

This marks the 5^th year that I’ve been keeping a word count on my production. I wrote a little more than 50,000 words of fiction and nonfiction intended for publication. That’s about the same as last year. It’s up from 2015, when I did about 44,000, but down from 2013 and 2014, with 80,000 and over 100,000 respectively. I’d like to shoot for 100,000 next year, but that seems unlikely since in the spring I’m going to be teaching introductory psychology, which I haven’t taught in 20 years. That means quite a bit more work for me.

Word count is actually pretty misleading for me, anyway. For example, I spent a couple of weeks revising Cold in the Light but actually took out words from its original count. How do I figure that into a word count? Also, I don’t count wordage from my blog posts or my journal, since those are not intended for publication. My journal for 2017, which does include my blog posts, is around 40,000 words. That’s down from years past.

Besides writing, everyone here knows I’m also a big reader. I mark my “year in books” from one birthday to the next, but Goodreads, of course, does it by calendar year. According to Goodreads, I read 69 books in 2017, 17,720 pages, at an average of 257 pages per book. The shortest book I read was Goodnight Moon, a kid’s story, at 32 pages. The longest was the SF book, Earth, by David Brin, at 704 pages. My average rating across all those book was 3.5 stars. The most popular book I read was The Girl on the Train, reviewed by over 200,000 people. The least popular was reviewed by 0 folks other than me, and that was Incredible Football Feats, which was published in 1974.

Some of my favorite reads for 2017: My Grandmother Danced, by Eve Brouwer, a wonderful novel told in poetic form. I also loved Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest, a poetry/prose chapbook by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier. My favorite YA book was The Summer of Moonlight Secrets by Danette Haworth, although I also much enjoyed Lad: A Dog, by Albert Terhune. My favorite writing related book was Bestseller Metrics by Elaine Ash. A really fine, and uniquely written, fantasy novel that I enjoyed was Helen’s Daimones by S. E. Lindberg. A great short horror novel that I read was Dark Hours, by Sidney Williams.

I got back into Dean Koontz in 2017, after a couple of years away, and enjoyed his Frankenstein series. I very much enjoyed Ravenheart and Stormrider by David Gemmell. I loved me some Ed Gorman westerns. Perhaps my least favorite read of the year was Big Lobo, A Nevada Jim Western.

I don’t make resolutions anymore. There are certain things I will try to do. I will try to read and write as much as I can without ignoring my wife and son and other important folks in my world, and without losing my job. I’ll try to eat good food but not quite as much. I’ll try for plenty of naps and walks in nature. I’ll try to be a good person to the best of my abilities. Hope you all have a great 2018.

Holiday Festival of the Arts program

I've been invited to read this Sunday, December 3, at the Holiday Festival of the Arts program in Covington. It’ll be held at the St. John’s Coffeehouse, which is at 535 E. Boston St. Covington, La. 70433. The phone # is 985-893-5553.

The program features a bunch of local authors. Some will be telling stories while others will do brief readings. I’m one of the readers, and will be reading material from “The Adventures of an Arkansawyer,” a humorous memoir of my days growing up on a farm in Arkansas.

The program begins at 12:15 and ends at 4:00. My actual reading will be sometime between 1:40 and 2:40. I’m not sure of the exact moments. The whole program looks pretty interesting, though.

I will also have some of my books for sale during the intervals between events. I’m planning on bringing copies of:

Cold in the Light: $8.

Killing Trail: $5.

Harmland: $5.

The Adventures of an Arkansawyer: $6.

If you’re local, I hope you’ll drop by. Would love to see you. If anyone who is planning to come wants a specific book, let me know and I’ll be sure to bring it.

In a world of books

Sometimes folks seem to think I lead an exciting life. Well, I do. But not in the way they think. I live most of my exciting adventures through books. And I always have. I became addicted to reading very early and have never broken the habit. I typically three 2 to 3 books at a time, of varying types. I'm reading a pulp western, a collection of Robert Frost's poetry, and a children's book right now.

I got almost all of my early reading through the library since we didn't have money for a lot of books. But I actually kept semi-decent records of what I read as a youngster and as an adult I have purchased many of those old books. Now I've taken pictures of those and will share some of them here. Among the books I read in my pre-teen and teen years were books about:

Football. I wanted to be a running back for the Arkansas Razorbacks growing up, and then go pro with Green Bay. I did play in high school but weighed only 132 pounds when I graduated so I never played college ball. I lived many football adventures with Joe Archibald, though. Here are some:
                                                
                                           

I also loved animal stories and that probably made up the bulk of my early reading. Jim Kjelgaard and Walter Farley were staples in those days:

I loved novels but I also enjoyed reading of real life adventure and non fiction. A favorite series for me were the "You Were There" adventures. Here's two that I remember fondly.

Soon, I began to branch out to westerns, science fiction, and fantasy. But that's for another post.

A Problem of Facebooking

So, here’s a thing I’ve discovered. Facebook is too easy. You can jump online, post something, get near immediate feedback from some of your thousand plus friends, and it feels good. You can easily stay in contact with family and close friends and see what they’re up to, although most of the time it isn’t anything exciting. You can share your joys at what you’re reading or watching, or lament your failures with people who have similar interests. But, the ease of Facebook communication is misleading. It would be better for me to call my family members than to just like some picture they post. It would be better to make plans to get together with a friend and have lunch.

As a writer, I’ve also used Facebook as a way to promote my work, but it’s become clear to me that FB is not designed to help you do that unless you pay. A personal post I make gets seen by everyone while any kind of promotion for my work disappears into a black hole. And even though it doesn’t help much with promotion, it has become—for me—a huge time sink. I’m writing less and reading less because of it.  Inevitably in writing a story there comes a pause while you think of what needs to happen next. Too often of late I’ve filled that pause by hopping on Facebook, and then finding half an hour or more gone just like that. A better promotion of my work would be to do more of it rather than talk about it.

For these reasons, I’ve decided to take a big step back from Facebook. I’ll monitor the sales of my books and stories to see if there is any discernable effect, so in that way it’ll be an experiment.  Meanwhile, I hope to see my output of both reading and writing increase, as well as finding time and motivation to do a bit more blogging.

Reading across the Genres

Over the past few days I finished a graphic crime novel set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. At the same time I was reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, originally published in Russian as an indictment of the Stalinist era. Meanwhile, I was into a historical novel about the crusades, which turned out, somewhat to my surprise, to be basically porno. After finishing the “Ivan” book, I started a philosophical treatise from Kierkegaard on The Present Age, and a textbook on evolution. The New Orleans graphic novel transitioned into a weird western featuring Jonah Hex. Throw in two novellas, a sword & sorcery piece and a southern noir. Before that, a collection of short stories about the Jim Crow era, a nonfiction documentary piece on Hair Metal, a video game tie in called Metal Gear, some space opera, a collection of Poeesque horror stories, a big book of science fiction flash fictions, and a post-apocalyptic western by Edward Abbey. I wonder what is next.

Do you tend to read across many genres, or focus on one or two? If you do read across genres, do you jump about willy-nilly? Or do you tend to do a few books in one genre before switching to another? Just wondering.

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Genre Shaming

Feedly has been down today. From what I picked up on their blog, they've been web attacked by some group that wants to extort money from them. Let's hope they get it cleared up soon. Since I no longer even have all of the individual links for folks, I'm not visiting blogs until they get Feedly back up and running. Just means I have time to update my book files on the books I bought today when I visited 2nd and Charles. Not that I needed more books.

Another thing making the rounds on Facebook has been somebody who went on a rant about how grown ups shouldn't be wasting their time on YA fiction. Probably just a pathetic cry for attention. I always have to laugh when people do this sort of thing, try to denigrate the reading choices of other people to make themselves feel better and smarter. I even heard the term 'genre shaming' the other day and got a good cackle out of it.

I've never lived in a place, or even been in a writing group, in which my primary choices for reading and writing weren't frowned upon.  It never had one iota of effect on my reading/writing behavior, although I once left a group because of the constant snide comments comparing my work to comic books, which the person making the comments didn't know anything about anyway.

My advice to those who feel attacked for their choices:  1) Be confident in your own choices. If you're reading, then it means you've got some intelligence and imagination, which already puts you into an elite group of humanity. 2) Know that no matter what you read, you are building a vocabulary and learning to process written information in a faster and more efficient way. 3) Stop giving a shit what people with lesser imaginations criticize about you.

I do firmly believe it's better to read all kinds of things than to limit yourself to just one genre, but there are no genres to be ashamed of. Certainly, there are good and bad examples of writing and storytelling within all genres. But it's all grist for the mill.

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Writing, Reading, and Losses

I'm considering this the first day of our Easter vacation. I'm off next week from school. We have a few plans. I'm going up to see my son be honored at his school's honors convocation on Tuesday. Not sure yet if Lana will go with me. I'm sure we'll get out to some local parks quite a bit while I'm off, too.

But mostly I'm hoping to get some writing done. I mentioned Micro Weird and I believe I'll be able to get that finished and published by the end of the week. I'm also rolling pretty well in an exciting section of Wraith of Talera so I hope to keep that momentum up. I have a few school quizzes to grade but they won't take long.

And, hey, I might even get some reading done. I want to read some stuff from Rick Hautala, James Herbert, and David Silva, all excellent horror writers who died just recently. I did not know any of them on a personal level but had corresponded with Rick and David. I have read their work before and have great respect for all three. There is a Kindle collection of Rick Hautala's short stories available for free right now if you'd like to sample his work. It's called Glimpses:


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What the Genres Taught Me: Or Tried To Anyway

Everything we experience shapes us. That includes the stuff we read. I got to thinking recently of what the books I read in my youth taught me, or tried to teach me. I thought I’d analyze it by genres, which is often the way I think about my reading. Let’s see if your experiences differed.

Westerns: (Example: Louis L’Amour: To Tame A Land). Taught me about being honorable, about standing up for what you believe in and what is right. Taught me to yearn for natural vistas and to enjoy a night out under the stars.

Y/A fiction: Animals stories: (Example: Walter Farley: The Black Stallion). Taught me about the bonds that are possible between humans and animals. Taught me to respect the strength and courage of our animal companions, and indeed of all animals. Taught me to see animals, not as humans, but as unique beings in their own right.

Science fiction: (Example: Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles). Taught me about wonder, about the glories of strange landscapes, and about the nature of humanity’s fears of the unknown, and our abilities to adapt to that unknown. Taught me about the beauty of language to express what no one has ever actually seen or experienced.

Fantasy: (Example: Robert E. Howard: The Conan stories). Taught me about being independent minded, about not following the herd just because that’s “the way it’s always been done.” Taught me to think about the things I was told rather than accept them blindly. Also taught me about honor and about establishing one’s own sense of ethics.

Sports stories: (Example: Joe Arichbald: Hard Nosed Half Back). Taught me about getting up one more time than I’m knocked down. Taught me about perseverance, about preparing yourself for your chance rather than just waiting for luck to find you.

There are other genres I read. Maybe I’ll talk about them later. But this is enough for one blog post. I’m sorry I’ve been absent so long. Last week was, to put it mildly, “full.” Lana had her tonsils taken out, which from what the doctor said appears to be the source of her cancer. There is still the issue in the lymph node but we are supposed to see him next week about that. I’ll keep you informed.

In the meantime, what did your reading teach you?
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The Year of Reading Dangerously

Those who have been visiting my blog regularly may remember that I keep records of the books I read and that I measure my reading year from birthday to birthday. Being that the 14th was my birthday, I have now compiled my yearly report.

I read 118 books this past year, up 2 from last year and down 6 from the year before that. In general, my reading habits remained very consistent from last year, 13 nonfiction reads in each year, 2 classics, 21 SF, and 5 poetry works. I was up 2 on westerns, to 15, and down 6 in thriller/mystery, to 18. The three most notable changes were as follows: 1. I was down 6 in fantasy, for a total of 5, the lowest number of fantasy novels that I’ve read in a year since I began keeping detailed records (1988). 2. I was up to a total of 11 in graphic novels, the highest number since I’ve been keeping records. (I didn’t even have a category for graphic novels until about three years ago.) 3. I hit 7 on reread books, the highest number ever in my personal history. (I didn’t have this category until about 10 years ago.

Why the changes? Well, ever since I read The Watchmen I’ve been going up on reading graphic novels, hoping for a repeat of that classic. So far, not. But hope remains. And, some of those graphic novels would be classified as fantasy, so my fantasy count may not be down as much as it seems. As for the reread books? For most of the last 30 years I’ve virtually refused to reread a book because there were so many “new” books out there. Since about 2003, though, I’ve started to allow myself more “comfort” reads, books that I know without a doubt I’ll enjoy. I suspect it has something to do with aging.

So that’s my year-of-reading report. I’m gonna try to make my blogging rounds now, although I’m still going to be fairly scarce for a while. I just finished a major editing job for which I was spending several hours a day, and finished grading a test I gave Thursday. Unfortunately, next week is midterm time for us at Xavier and I’m going to be doing a lot of grading for the next few days. After that I hope things will get back to normal.

Later.
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No Reading Allowed

I've not been able to get around to visiting blogs much in the past few days but I should get back to a more normal schedule next week. Monday and Tuesday I put in eight hour writing days finishing up an article on Charles Darwin. Wednesday I spent most of the day in court or dealing with court related items. After nearly three hours in court, however, all they did was end up giving Josh yet another court date on November 2. That means another lost day of work for both of us, and no doubt more expense.

After the few times I've had to be in court I've seen enough to realize a few things. One, the courts are overloaded for two main reasons: 1) they deal with plenty of petty things that really should not be clogging up the courts at all, and 2) they are so inefficient that they end up seeing every person who comes through the court multiple times. Most of today's actions seem to be delaying tactics, putting things off until later.

I also came to another realization today. While courts are supposed to represent rationality they are, in fact, bastions of irrationality. They assert power in all its irrational forms. Here's a good illustration, although just a minor one. I'm sitting in the back of a large courtroom that has about fifty people in it. Most people are fidgeting. Almost everyone looks either sullen, bored, or terrified. The judge is way up at the front dealing with lawyers and one defendent at a time. The woman in front of me is sitting quietly next to her son reading a novel. The novel is down in her lap. The bailiff comes marching up and tells her she's not allowed to read in the courtroom. It could have been me. I had a book with me but hadn't started to read yet.

Can you imagine much of anything more asinine? Or irrational? I could see not wanting someone to play a Gameboy in the courtroom, or be talking on their cellphone, but what possible harm could occur from someone reading quietly in the back of the room? I think this, more than anything today, showed me how profoundly silly the justice system is in this country.

Anyway, now I've got to get ready for the my Louisiana Book Festival presentation this Saturday. No rest for the weary.
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Reading Habits Meme

Check out Writtenwyrd’s Chthulu Horror Writing Contest. Looks like it’s going to be cool.

In the meantime, I’ve been seeing this “reading habit” meme around and it looks like fun. So here goes: (the questions are in italics, my responses not)

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:
I read any time I get a chance so I often read while I’m eating, but I don’t specifically seek out snacks or drinks when I decide to read.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I do mark in nonfiction books, especially those I’m using for classes. In fact, I’ll have lots of marginalia in those. If I find something particularly interesting in a nonfiction book I’ll make a note in the front of the topic and page number. I don’t mark in fiction books but will make notes on a separate sheet or a computer file at times.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmark only. I hate the thought of dog ears. As for laying the book flat open, and face down, I’ll only do that with hardback textbooks, which are built tough.

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?
I read about two thirds fiction to one third nonfiction. I read in just about every genre within fiction and nonfiction. Probably most of my nonfiction is about science or writing.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
It depends on the book. I like to read to the end of a chapter, or to a clear break marked by a space, but some books have long dense chapters and I’ll stop where ever I have to, like with The Prince of Tides.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
Almost always, or if I’m not in a position to look it up I’ll write it down to look it up later.

What are you currently reading?
The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy
The McDonaldization of Society, by George Ritzer
The Future at War, Volume II: The Spears of Mars

What is the last book you bought?
Like Mayflies in a Stream, by Shauna Roberts

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
I usually read at least 3, often a nonfiction book, a novel, and a short story collection.

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
Anywhere, anytime. I once took my brother to the New Orleans casino. Since I didn’t care to lose money myself, I took a book and read. Man did I get some weird looks. But I just thought it was funny. I take a book with me everywhere.

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
Seems like most books published these days are parts of series, especially in fantasy. I like series a lot, but I also read plenty of standalones. I don’t have a specific preference, I don’t think.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
I recommend The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen to anyone I see. I consider it the single best book I’ve ever read. Besides that, I recommend based on the person’s interests. If they are interested in reading westerns I’ll give ‘em some L’Amour titles, if it’s thrillers I’ll mention Koontz or C. S. Graham, if it’s horror I’ll talk about Wayne Allen Sallee, or Charlee Jacob.

How do you organize your books?(by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)
The books that I’ve read are generally filed alphabetically within genre, and separated by hardbacks versus paperbacks. A few special types of books are kept in special places. Like I have all my old Ace Doubles in one place, alphabetical within author for those. My TBR piles are huge and are separated only into general categories, westerns, thrillers, SF/Fantasy, etc.
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Make Up Time

Well, to make up for the week of torrential downpours, nature treated us Saturday and Sunday to absolutely stunning days. Clear skies of crisp blue. Cool temperatures with almost no humidity and a sweet breeze. I read a lot on the deck while I watched the hungry birds swarm our feeders. (For a couple of days we had been putting food "on" the deck because it required wading to reach the feeders.)

I'm still finding reading on my Kindle 2 a pleasing experience. It's nice to always have a perfectly flat page, I'm finding. I also discovered earlier in the week that Amazon has quite a number of free Kindle books available for download, including a Robin Hobb fantasy and a Lee Child thriller. However, I must confess that I actually put in an order for printed copies of several of the books I've already read on my Kindle. I just really, really like having printed books around me.

On Saturday, Lana and I went to a few garage sales in Abita Springs. Word had gone out Friday that the town wide garage sale plans had been postponed, but some folks either didn't get the word or decided Saturday was too lovely not to have a sale. Despite having to walk through mud in places, a good time seemed to be had by all. Lana bought quite a few pieces of the colored glass she loves, and I bought........drumroll please.......books! It's hard to pass up any book that you might one day read when you get them for 25 to 50 cents.

I also got in a couple of good walks, and Lana and I went Sunday afternoon to one of the local nature centers. I'm sure she'll have up some pics this week.

And in the evenings, writing was accomplished.
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Biblioholism

Sidney Williams has a great post up about his Biblioholism. There are some hilarious lines here, made all the more so because they are true. I know because I've experienced the same thing. Sid is also talking about finally reading a book that he feels he should have gotten to long ago. I know what that's like too, and, in fact, two days ago I started L. Ron Hubbard's Fear, which I've heard much about over the past five years or so. It's certainly interesting so far, and holds my attention. There are plenty that don't.

At the risk of admitting my own poor education, there are a few other books on my shelves that I should have already read but haven't. I hope you all won't think less of me, but, hey, we've been talking about honesty in writing, haven't we? I'm just being honest. Besides, Sid admitted his failure first.

Here's my list:

Tolstoy's War and Peace. All I can say in my defense is, My God, it's huge.

E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros. My God, it's huge.

Lord Dunsayny's The King of Elfland's Daughter. Uhm, I can't even claim that it's all that big.

David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. It seems sort of big.

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I've been working on this slowly for about two years.

Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer. It's big, and well, kinda old.

There, that's enough for now. I can only take so much embarrassment in one post. So go ahead, leave me as the illiterate slob that I am. I promise, I promise. I'll get to them. I will.

SF Books for Writers

Yesterday I posted, and got some great commentary, on the five essential novels for Horror writers to read and study. But what about SF? What five SF books would make a study plan for a new SF writer? Below are mine, although I had a harder time coming up with the ones for this list than for the horror list, which might be informative in itself.

1. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1, The Short Stories, various writers. I personally believe that the best work in SF has been produced in the short story, and this volume collects the best of the best. If you were going to write short SF then this volume might be all you’d ever need.

2. The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells. Conflict with alien races is a big part of SF and this is the granddaddy of that “subgenre.”

3. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne. To me, SF involves technology, and often projects the invention or further development of current technologies into the future. Verne’s book is a good example of the early use of this trope.

4. Dune, by Frank Herbert. SF projects the human race into the future as well. How will we change and adapt? How will we stay the same? Dune is still one of the best books ever at showing a complex human society’s development on another world.

5. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein. Space opera is still SF to me, even though the science might not necessarily be very accurate. I personally love space opera and think there are some great stories there. This one by Heinlein is an early example but a good one of the space opera field.

I think there is a lot of room for debate with these choices, so tell me where I’m full of it. E. E. Doc Smith could easily be on here for Space Opera, but I was never a big fan of his work. Arguments could certainly be made for Bradbury, and I’d probably agree. And what of Asimov and Clarke? Well, they are represented in the Hall of Fame, at least. Also, I didn’t put any Sword and Planet stuff here, like ERB’s work with John Carter. I don’t think of that stuff as SF, but as fantasy, and I’ll do an equivalent list for fantasy at some point.